The Athletic Hockey Show - Could an in-season tournament work for the NHL, Blackhawks set date for Marion Hossa's jersey retirement, and teams with bizarre off-seasons

Episode Date: September 15, 2022

With the NBA moving closer to holding an "in-season" tournament in their 2023-24 season, Ian Mendes and Sean McIndoe discuss if a similar thing could work for the NHL, and also if a play-in tournament for the playoffs should come back. Next, the Blackhawks have set Marion Hossa's jersey retirement ceremony for November 20th, and if it means Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook aren't far behind. The duo brainstorm for Sean's next piece ranking team's bizarre offseason, and somehow, somewhere, Wilson Phillips gets involved.Have a question for Ian and Sean? Email [e-mail] or leave a VM @ [phone]!Save on a subscription to The Athletic: theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're back. It is a Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Ian Mendez, Sean McIndoo, are with you. As we kind of get set for the calm before the storm, a lot of rookie camps are going on this weekend at rookie tournaments. But next week at this time, NHL training camps will be in full swing. So between now and then, it's a little bit lighter.

We'll have some fun. We've got some great mailbag questions to get to, a little bit of this week in hockey history. We're actually going to workshop one of Sean's columns maybe for next week. We'll kind of, you know, bat that around a little bit. We'll talk about Marion Hoses number 81, the date that that's going to go to the rafters in Chicago. But I want to start with something, Sean,

that our colleague at the athletic, Shams Sharania, who was obviously one of the best newsbreakers in the NBA business, had the details a couple days ago, that the NBA is now closer than ever to implementing an in-season tournament, starting not this season but next year. So, 2023,

uh, 2024, the NBA, uh, Sean, is looking at doing an in-season tournament. And this is just to give our listeners a little sense of like the framework. And we'll bring this back to the NHL here in a second.

But basically, um, in the month of November, your regular season games are like these sort of, we'll call them the, they call them the cup games. Okay. So then the teams,

the eight teams with the best record in the month of November, will advance to a single, elimination tournament in the month of December. The other 22 teams that aren't part of that elite eight or whatever you want to call them, they just go back to their regular season schedule. Every game that's part of this in-season tournament is actually part of your regular 82 game schedule with the caveat being if you get to the final of the in-season tournament, you technically play one more game than everybody else.

So, you know, you might end up playing 83 games instead of 82. like let's say if Boston and Golden State get to the final end of the year they play 83 games than 82. My question is you're going to hear this chatter a lot, I think amongst hockey fans, because the NBA is doing it. My question is, could this ever work in the NHL? I think it could. I'm curious to see how it works in the NBA. I don't mind letting them run with the ball here, so to speak, and let them be the test case. The key here, and the key thing that makes me think this could work in hockey,

is that everything they're doing also counts as part of the regular season. This is not something that is happening beyond that. This is not something where they pause the season to do this little mini tournament. I don't think that would work in hockey. I mean, we have seen in hockey, whether it's the All-Star game, or whether you have ever paid money to go to a training camp game, like a preseason game, we've seen that if the game doesn't count,

the effort level drops significantly to the point where it's borderline unwatchable. So that would be the key here. And that's, you know, I say that because I'm a big proponent of changing how we do to determine the draft order rather than doing lotteries and doing. it all by standings. I'm a big fan of what's called the gold plan, which is an idea a guy came up with years ago now where you basically as teams get eliminated from the playoffs, they start earning points towards their draft spot. I love that idea. It gives the bad teams a head start, but it makes you win your way to the top pick. I think it's phenomenal. But whenever I put it out

there, some people like it, some people don't. And then there's always people who say, well, well, what if instead of doing it that way, what if you just take all the teams that don't make the playoffs and you have them do a tournament at the end of the year for the number one pick? Wouldn't that be great? A tournament for Connor Bedard or whoever's going to be the next Connor McDavid. And I love the concept, but I don't think that would work because those games are outside of the regular season,

and I just don't think you would see the effort level from players of all. I know, I mean, there would be a prize at the end in terms of getting the number one pick, but I mean, you're, man, you're a player, you just finished an 82 game season. And now you're going to go win a tournament so that some guy can come in and take your spot on the first line next year. I don't think it would work. I think, you know, there'd be too many guys who'd be hurt, too many guys who wouldn't want to play. I don't think it would work. And I've always kind of felt the same way about this idea of, you know, what if we did some sort of tournament?

But by making it part of the regular season, you change that dynamic. I mean, that was the master stroke that made the outdoor games successful. Like, we had had outdoor games before as exhibition games, but that very first Heritage Classic back in, what was 2003, that was the key that made it work was they counted that as a regular season game. And I'm sure there were some people who didn't want to. He said, you know what? The conditions might be weird.

It's outside of our normal thing. We can't count that. What if some team misses the playoffs by one point because they lost an outdoor game? But the league, to their credit, said, no, we're going to count. out that as a regular season game, that gives you the intensity, it gives you the importance, it turns it into a meaningful game. Same deal here. I'm just very curious to see in the NBA,

do the players care about this? Does this feel important to the players, or does it just feel like one of those weird kind of side show things that they put a name on, but it just feels like the regular season? Or does the intensity level go up? I know they're going to put a cash prize out there for the NBA players, but does it turn into something more? And why that concerns me as a hockey fan is it's been made very, very clear. In fact, I think I've made the argument before.

I think this is harmful for the NHL. Other people disagree, but it has been made very, very clear over and over in the NHL that the Stanley Cup is the only thing that matters. Nobody cares who wins the President's trophy at all. nobody cares who wins number one seating anytime a team raises a banner like regular season division champion we all laugh at them um you know yeah exactly we we don't care about any of that stuff even you can win the conference championship and we all sit around and and go well they better not touch

the trophy right when we see this this this stupid thing the players oh we didn't touch the trophy because that's not the trophy we want right you know like oh great you're you know two teams get there every year and you're acting like it doesn't matter. You know, and I've said the reason, I love the, I love the, the legacy of the Stanley Cup. I love how important it is, but you can't have a league where 97% of the league are failures every year. Like, how do you market that?

How do you get fans passionate and excited? And boy, can't wait to see my team maybe have one good season or two in my lifetime. And the rest of them, I'm supposed to act like they're big failures. So would that same, you know, would we see that same sort of thing? Would the team that wins the tournament not touch the trophy? Because, I don't know, we're focused on the Stanley Cup. You know, would you see some coach starting his backup goalie in the championship game? Because we got a big division game the week after and we're really focused on the cup.

You know, that kind of super hyper-traditionalist nonsense could waylay it. But if they're open to it, you know, and if it's treated as something important, and again, it's regular season. So it does, you know, everything by definition matters. I think it could be pretty cool. And it could be a cool way to make those November-December games feel more important. Because, I mean, look at the Eastern Conference last year. We knew the playoff teams by November.

And it felt like nothing really that happened. The rest of the way it was going to matter all that much. This would be a way to make it matter. And it would make those November-December games for the good teams that you already know are on the way to the playoffs suddenly feel like they mattered. And, you know, you could get some cool scenarios. You could get playoff rematches. Like, you know, oh, yeah, these two teams that we got beat in the regular season cup mode, but now we get a chance back at them. It could be cool.

I want to see if it works in the NBA, I'd love to try it in the NHL. Sometimes this stuff sounds cool in practice, or in theory, but then you see it out, play it out in real life and it doesn't work. I'm happy to let the NBA lead the way on this, but if it works for them, I'd love to see the NHL try it. Okay, but we've also let the NBA. kind of run the trial balloon on the play-in tournament, meaning at the end of the regular season, the top six teams in each conference automatically get their ticket punch to the playoffs,

but the teams that are ranked seventh and eighth in the conferences, they have to go and play an extra kind of play-in round. We've seen that play itself out now for a couple of years in the NBA. The NBA now looks like they've adopted that permanently. Have we seen enough out of that to say, okay, you know what? Yes, sign me up for the play-in tournament. I know, look, baseball, was the first one to do it with the wild card play-in game a few years ago.

And I think a lot of people love it. The drama of, you know, game 163 seems to really matter and it's great. They've added to that. The NBA has added to it. The NFL has expanded even and altered their playoff format. The NHL hasn't. Have you seen enough out of the playing format in the NBA to say, yeah, you know what, give me that?

I have because I've been on board with this idea for a while. and I've laid out the argument. I think more playoff spots means more teams that have something to play for late in the season. And I think it puts more inflection points on the standings, especially today in an era where basically you make the playoffs

one through eight, the seating doesn't matter. Home Ice doesn't matter. At least it doesn't feel like it matters. And it doesn't feel like the teams particularly care about it. I mean, look at Tampa Bay. They finish third every year in the division. They don't care because they know they can win playoff series on the road.

road, but now suddenly where you finish starts to matter more because you don't want to be in the play in. So now you want to finish up around sixth. And also, you know, maybe the teams that are, maybe you want to finish first or second to play those playing teams and, you know, get teams that aren't as rested and all of that stuff. I've, I had seen enough when I first saw the idea and started thinking about it, that you know what, this makes sense for the NHL. And I've said before, if you're somebody who says, no, no, we know what, we had, I feel like a lot of hockey fans are scarred by the fact that we had so many years where there were 21 teams and 16 made the playoffs. Yeah.

And it was too many. We're making. Yeah. And they feel like, you know, no, we finally got it down to half. Now we finally got 32 teams 16 out of 32. That's right. Okay. So do a play in and say that only the teams that make it through the play in make the playoffs.

You know, I'd be fine with that. You know, we don't count it. I'm totally on board with it. But here's the thing. I'm not the one who makes that call. And Gary Betman from all the accounts I've ever heard, just has a real bug-up is behind about this. Like, this feels like one of those things that, you know, don't you feel like there's so many things that whenever they get proposed,

you get this kind of wishy-washy, maybe someday, who knows. But this is the one that Gary Bettman just shoots it down and says, no, we are not changing the playoffs. And, okay, I mean, he's the commissioner. He's supposed to be the leader of the league. I don't mind him slamming his fists down on the table and saying, where you are not going to do something, I just wish I saw this kind of leadership from him more often on anything else, other than this one issue where he just seems to have decided years and years ago

that that was it were not doing anything with the playoffs, even though it would give us more postseason games, even though it would give us, you know, more attention, more markets in the running. You know, I thought maybe when we saw the bubble in 2020 where the NHL, by circumstances, was forced to get creative and did a fantastic job. did, you know, did something that a lot of us when we first heard it went, oh, man, that's, that's crazy. Pulled it off.

Had it work. I thought, okay, maybe this will open the door. And then everything I've seen in the two years since from Gary Betman is, no, we're absolutely not doing it. So, you know, I guess, I guess that's that until, you know, I'm always, everyone always tells me whenever I get mad at Gary Betman about anything, that he just works for the owners. And I shouldn't blame him for anything. and he's just, it's just his job to just count up the votes.

He's basically a glorified $8 million a year stenographer taking notes at their meetings. I've never bought into that. But if that was the case, I'd love for the owners to overrule him here because I think it would be cool. But apparently not. He shoots this down. If you've never seen him ask this at one of his press guy, he shoots it down with a passion that you just don't see from this guy on pretty much anything else. and I don't understand why that is. Yeah, I feel like there's a backstory here.

Like any other topic you bring up with Gary, even if you're like, you know, one day could you see a European division in the NHL and be like, nah, you know, probably not, but you know, never say never. This one, it almost feels like, did something happen to you in middle school where like you got knocked out of a tournament because of a play-in format? Like, there's got to be something here.

Get Russo on this. There's a story here. Gary Bedron lost his chess tournament in like grade seven because there was some sort of double play in or, you know, one of those were, yeah, there's double elimination. What did he tell? I beat you already. And yeah, it's got to be something like that.

Yeah. Because, man, he gets, he gets fired up about that. I'll tell you, you're right. The 2020 bubble when they had the play in, essentially technically it was a play in, right? Remember, like Toronto played Columbus and Chicago and Edmonton and, you know, and we were like, okay, there it is. The genies out of the bottle. Now we can do it.

And then they went back where I thought. there was a real chance is when the NBA, sorry, the NHL renegotiated the TV deals in the United States and ESPN came back on board. And TNT came and I thought, okay, here we go. Like, this is it. Like, this is like made for TV. Like if I was a television executive and I had a product like the NHL, I would be pushing for the play in tournament because it's like made for TV, uh, must watch appointment viewing. And it didn't happen there. So then now in my mind, I'm thinking, well, whenever the next Canadian television deal is up, which I think is 2027, I want to say. Getting there.

Kind of slowly moving along. I think we're in the year eight of a 12-year deal or whatever it is. Like, part of the problem for this league has been most of the innovation has come from south of the border. Because they're not so desperately tied to tradition and, you know, like we are up here in Canada. But maybe it would. And to be clear, if people don't know what we're talking about, like we're not talking about the bubble where you had 24 teams and people who had their playing series. How does it work in the NBA, right? It's teams number 10, 9, 8, and 7.

Yeah. 10 and 9 play each other. Okay, loser goes home. 7 and 8 play each other. Winner is in the playoffs. And then the loser is 7 and 8 plays the winner of 9 and 10 and the winner of that team is in the playoffs. So basically, if you finish 7th or 8th, you get two swings. And if you finish ninth or tenth, you've got to go two for two.

So it's, you know, even there, where you finish matters a lot. But, you know, you do open it up. The one thing that I feel like did give us a bit of a step back, because I've always said, I mean, look at the standings. You know, why do we draw this huge thick line between eight and nine when a lot of times, you know, nine to ten is just as close and 10 to 11 is just as close and maybe only a few points back? What hurt us is last year, the Eastern Conference. That's going to be, that to me is both the best argument for and against, right?

Because if you want an argument against, you say, look, teams 9 and 10 were 20 points back a teammate. Are you really going to play a whole season, have a team like Boston or Washington finished 20 points ahead of whoever it would have been Columbus, and then maybe lose one game to them or one, you know, short two game series? and they miss the playoffs to a team that's 20 points back, that's ridiculous. Now, the argument, the reason why

it's an argument for is, as I already said, that playoff race was as dull as a race could possibly be in the East last year. I mean, from mid-November, it was finished. And, you know, we didn't need to pay it to, all you were worried about was seating, and seating doesn't matter. This would have given you something to look for

and something to play for. But I do get where team, you know, and I don't know, maybe it's a cutoff. Maybe you say, like, in order to make the play and you have to finish within X points of eighth place. So that if at Eastern scenario, we just go, we're not doing it. Is it 10? Is 10 points too big? I wouldn't go like less than six, right?

I mean, like, you have to acknowledge that, you know, two or three games, you know, some people would say 10's too big. I mean, look, it's, it's hockey. It's sports. Some team, you know, my team finishes eighth and we lose in a play in, I'm going to complain. I'm going to say that this system is no good. And if my team's ninth, then they get into the playoffs, I'm going to think it's great. But it just feels like there's so many different ways to do it. And I'm not saying the NBA has it perfect, you know, but let's get created.

Let's think about it. And it just feels like in the NHL, for public perception at the very least, it's just something. It's a non-starter. Gary Bettman just does not want it to get off the ground. I don't understand why that is because it's, like you said, it should be free money for the TV partners. and free attention and free hype and more meaningful games in the regular season. I don't see the downside other than this idea that we're letting too many teams into the playoffs or we're letting the wrong ones in.

Like I said, don't call it the playoffs. Say the play in is not the playoffs. And if your team finishes 10th and they lose that first game, your team did not make the playoffs. Do it that way if you want to. I don't know. I'd love to hear from some people who hate this idea and can, articulate to me why they don't want to see it. Other than just, other than this isn't the way we've done it before, because I'm sick and

tired of that being the answer for everything in hockey. We're going to get an email from Gary, Gary B. Yeah. In Sykakis, New Jersey. Barry G. Wait a second. That's, hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. Barry Getman. Yeah. Yeah. Send us a voicemail, Barry. Let's see if we can spot the voice. Look, as I mentioned off the top, this is a real soft spot on the kind of the news cycle in the NHL. A lot of teams are starting their rookie tournaments, rookie camps.

Next week, when we get back on Thursday, we'll have obviously training camps starting, maybe some other signings, that type of thing. Chicago, though, Sean was in the news on Wednesday, as they announced the date in which Marion hosts number 81 will be raised to the rafters at United Center. be November 20th against. Interestingly enough, it's the Pittsburgh Penguins. Hosa, of course, played one season. They're kind of part of a season, right, with the Penguins,

and got to Stanley Cup final before losing. I thought Pittsburgh was a curious choice. I mean, here's the thing. Here's a fun Marion Hosa fact for you. And this is why I wish they had picked Ottawa as the opponent. Did you know Marion Hosa scored more goals with Ottawa than he did with Chicago? I did not. No, I don't think a lot of people would know that.

Yeah, it is. It is. It's a surprising that. What about games? Fewer games in Ottawa. Yeah, okay. But more goals. 188 goals with Ottawa and 186 goals with Chicago.

Again, if you'd ask most people, what team did Marion Hoses score the most goals with? You would automatically say Chicago, and that's, you know, not the case. He had a little slightly better production in Ottawa, but that's besides the point. I guess my question is this. If we assume that,

Jonathan Taves and Patrick Kane are slam dunks to get their numbers eventually retired. Yeah, there's still some runway to go and maybe things get a little sticky and whatever. But all things being equal, it feels like 19 and 88 are going to the rafters in Chicago. Now 81 is going up with Marion Hosa. I feel like Duncan Keith is a lock at, you know, Norris Trophy winner, arguably at one point the best defenseman in the game. Right? Because I think he's going to go to the Hall of Fame and that should make him a lot.

Yeah. But now my question is Brent Seabrook, because if you say yes to Hosa, can you say no to Seabrook? I guess is my question. I think you can. I don't think they do. I, you know, Seabrook out of that, out of those five players, certainly in terms of star power is the fifth. And I don't think anyone would argue that. I would say as far as importance to the team, probably fifth. But I'm sure. there are some hawksman who go, wait a second, you know, this guy was the glue guy. This guy was more important than you think, even though he didn't put up the big numbers. You know, I think he probably does get up there as well. It's maybe a little tougher. It's interesting to me because every team is different with how they handle retired numbers. Every team has their own policies, idiosyncrasy. I mean, there's some teams that will not retire your number if you're not in the Hall of Fame, which to me is ridiculous.

I've never liked that criteria, but some teams do it that way. There are teams that even getting into the Hall of Fame doesn't necessarily get you in. I mean, when we talked to Arpin last week, right? I mean, Montreal, there's too many guys. There's guys in the Hall of Fame who didn't get their numbers retired. Chicago is interesting. Chicago's what I would consider more traditional in the sense that they have, like the superstars are the ones that are up there.

They don't really have anyone that you wouldn't consider an all-time star with the exception of Keith Magnuson. And that was a case of a guy who played for the team for a lot of years and then tragically died at a young age. Other than that, it's Glenn Hall, Bobby Hall, Denny Savard, Stan McKee to Tony Esposito. And then it'll be the modern guys. What's interesting about that for me is that what's missing other than Denny Savard is pretty much an entire generation of, you know, 80s and 90s. Blackhawks, there's no, no Doug Wilson, no Jeremy Roanick, no Steve Larmer is one that, you know, I know a lot of people pushing for him to be in the Hall of Fame.

You know, even Chris Chelyos, not not up there as a Blackhawk. And, you know, he obviously spent a lot of time there. So, you know, you will get this situation where, you know, part of the reason I love retired numbers is is the image of you know the mom or the dad bringing the little kid into the arena and pointing up it and saying you know there's the story of this this franchise hanging up there and the story of the of the blackhawks is basically you know we won some cups in you know in the 60s and we had this great goalie in the in the 60s and 70s and then dot dot dot there was denny savard and for 30 years and that's it and that's all we got and and it would

that will certainly feel very over the top if you get to, you know, to the modern era and there's five guys hanging there. So, you know, to me, that's not an argument against doing Brett Seabrook. It's an argument maybe for doing a few of the guys, you know, I mean, Doug Wilson made the Hall of Fame 100% based on his work with the Blackhawks. You know, that last season or two in San Jose didn't didn't move the needle at all. You know, guys like that, because as I say, you can, you can be very exclusive with your numbers, or you can be, you know, very open and put up basically anyone that was meaningful to the fans. And I'm good with either.

I, I've always said when it comes to who should get their number, I'll debate you on the Hall of Fame. But when it comes to who should get their number retired, who do the fans want? Who do the fans love? You know what? Get them. I cheer for the least. Wendell Clark didn't come close to the Hall of Fame. Of course his number should be hanging in the rafters.

You can't tell the story of the Maple Leafs without his number being up there. I don't mind teams that cast a bit of a wide net, but it's going to look very weird if the Blackhawks go from an entire generation of being incredibly stingy and then have five guys from the same team up there. And that's not even getting into, well, you know, if we're going to do Seabrook, what about Patrick Sharp? What about this guy or that? What about Cory Crawford?

Corny Coulthender from two. Absolutely. You know, it's going to be interesting. they're going to have to draw the line somewhere, I guess. I don't know. I'll tell you, as a Lee fan, watching my team not win a cup for 50 years, if they win three in a handful of years,

you can retire the whole team. They can all go up there. If we don't have any numbers left, that's fine. Everyone can wear a symbol. I don't care. I will be, I'll be out there. Yeah, go ahead and retire the backup goalie's number. I could care less if they do it.

So I'm all for Chicago going nuts here, but let's maybe consider backfilling a little bit on. some of those teams that were really good. And in some cases, went all the way to a final and, you know, didn't win a championship, but I think are probably still deserving. So I was also looking this up, and I was kind of surprised by this. Marion Hoses number 81 will be raised to the rafters, as I mentioned, by Chicago this season. He's only the second player, Sean, whose number is in the 80s to be retired in the NHL.

And the only other one in the 80s that is retired is Eric Lindross, 88 in Philadelphia, and that, of course, took a little bit of time because there was a fracturing of that relationship. But that's it. That's the only two numbers in the 80s. Now, as I kind of think this out here, I'm going to go through a few more guys in the 80s. You tell me, they're probably like, Sydney Crosby,

it's a lock. Yes. Patrick Cain. I'm going to say, I'm going to go ahead and say Sydney Crosby is probably in his number. And I say that, it's a hot take podcasting here. Even though Pittsburgh Penguin, but just off the top of your head,

do you know who are the players at the Pittsburgh Penguins numbers ever retired? I know there's Rick Hijo. Nope. He's not retired? Nope, he's not,

I don't believe at least was, unless it was very recent. There's one of those random guys in the 70s that people don't know. I'll give you the entire list. And, well, Mario, obviously.

Mario Lemieux. Yeah. Michelle Breyer. That's it. Sorry. That's the entire list. And Michelle Breyer is another one of those. It was a tragedy.

He was killed in a car accident. That's it. They haven't done Jagger yet. They didn't do Ron Francis. They've got only those guys. but yes, Sydney Crosby is definitely going up there. Yeah, so Crosby's going to get in. Cain's going to get in.

I think the key to Kutrov's going to get in, right? Like in Tampa. I would imagine, yeah. Tampa doesn't really have enough of a history to know for sure how they're in. Yeah, but I mean, really. Kutrov's going to get in. Yeah, Kutrov's getting in. Stanley Cups and MVP's, all that stuff,

scoring titles, etc. So all of a sudden you're going to get a whole bunch of guys, I think in the number in the 80s. I think David Posternak's going to come a bit short in Boston. He's still a way to go on that. Boston is a tough one. Boston's a tough one. There's some track there.

Brent Burns in San Jose now that they're retiring numbers finally. Yeah. Yeah. Is another one. Maybe you get Vasilevsky in Tampa as well. Alex McGilney, maybe if there's like a thawing of relations maybe somewhere with Buffalo. McGilley's the one that again,

like I'm shocked that he hasn't happened already. And I know with him it's a bit of an issue that he didn't stick around one place all that long. I mean, you could make an argument for him maybe even in New Jersey, but for Buffalo, yeah, I mean, Buffalo hasn't done, I don't believe they've done Dave Anderchuk or Phil Housley either. So Buffalo is a little bit, a little bit weird as far as how they're picking and choosing. But at McGilney, I mean, you and I and everybody else, it feels like, I've been banging the drum for McGilney for the Hall of Fame for a while now. Maybe that's what does it in Buffalo. And I've also talked to people that for both the Hall of Fame and retired numbers, who said that the problem,

that the problem with McGilney is he might not show up. He might just send you a text like, K thinks, and that's it. Like, you don't, there's no speech or anything like that. So maybe that could be it too, but yeah, I don't know. Okay. So anyway, so the 80s are going to get a whole bunch of additions now. So Lindross will be joined by Hosa,

and then at some point, like we said, Crosby, uh, Kane, Kutrov, et cetera. Um, so that leaves now, two kind of number, are kind of a sets of numbers here. Sean that only have one number retired.

Okay? So there's only one number in the 40s in the NHL that's retired by a team. Okay. Okay? So again, this is some impromptu trivia. So any guesses, any thoughts? I need you to drop a Stefan Rishi reference here, hoping.

Yeah. No. Okay, so my first thought was a goalie, but I can't, off the top of my head, think of too many goalies. and then my next thought is it has to be a 44 because that's the only cool number. It's a 44, okay.

It's a 44 and it's obviously not a goalie. People know I have some issues with that number, that jersey number when it comes to forwards and that is there a, Chris Proger was 44. Yeah, Chris Pronger St. Louis. Wow, okay. Chris Pronger St. Louis.

Okay. And then in the 50s, there's only one number that is retired for a player. Technically speaking, and this is again, once again, one of those more serious notes, but the Vegas Golden Knights have retired the number 58,

you know, due to the tragic mass shooting that occurred just before their franchise started to took the lives of 58 people. But in terms of players in the NHL that have a number in the 50s retired, there's only one player.

And I'm wondering if you know who that is. Okay, so again, I'm sort of thinking Not a goalie. Not a goalie for sure here. I'm thinking 55 now as my is, is, is it 55? It's not 55.

Okay. That's the funny thing. Um, did they not do Zubov in Dallas this year? Yeah, this year. Sergey Zubov's number 56 was retired. First time ever that a player whose number was in the 50s was retired.

That was this year. Sergei Zubov, 50s. All right, let me, let me throw the other name. So Adam Foote is not retired because that's the other one. Not the list that I saw. Okay. No, you know what?

That is a good point. No, I don't think he is, right? I, yeah, I don't. He wasn't on the list that I. Well, let me, I'm going to, I'm going to, people can hear me banging on it. As I use this, by the way, we should, we should point out that, um, uh, Mattis Kivlen

his number 80 is honored in Columbus, but not actually retired, although it will not be warning. I mean, they'll never hand that number out again. But if people are, when we were talking about guys in the 80s. Adam Foote is. He had his number retired in 2013. He did? According to this.

Yeah. According to Wikipedia, and if that's... If I've learned any, I think it was hockey reference that I went to. Either it was hockey reference or Wikipedia. media. Anyway, so there you go. Okay. So never mind. Move over Sergey Zubov. You weren't the first. It was Adam Foote. Yeah. Sorry. Once again, Sergey Zubovic, disrespected yet again. It was constantly overlooked. There you go. That's all we need. This gives Dallas fans another reason to get mad about Sergey Zubovos.

Well, this would be avalanche fans be all over us. Yeah, all over me. Adam, you, Adam foot. Yeah. Yeah, I had your back. Hey, actually, Adam Foote's name is going to come up. I, these are words. These are words I've never uttered on a show before, but Adam Prince's name is going to come up in a few minutes on this podcast when we tackle something else. You want to talk about a teaser. Is that

what they, yeah, in the business. This is called a cliffhanger. We're going to see everybody, call a friend, tell them to two days. Adam foot. Anyway, but it's this week in hockey history, so it's a great anecdote. Hey,

next week, we're going to do some of your work for you. That's what I'm looking for. I think you do this thing. This is the whole reason when you generated this podcast. That's right. Just workshop ideas for your down goes brown columns.

I think you do this every year, right? Where you at the start of training camp, you kind of rank everybody's bizarro meter in the offseason, right? Like who had the weirdest off season? And why don't you lay out the criteria? Because it's not best or worse. That's the weirdest. That's the key.

Every year I do all 32 teams get a rating. And it's the bizarre omeanor. It's how bizarre was your off season? And the genesis of this were actually almost on a decade of it now because it was back. And I first created this concept in 2013 when the Toronto Maple Leafs had one of the worst off seasons. Is that the Clarkson year? That was the David Clarkson year. And Dave Notice gets the extension and all this other stuff.

and I use this as a concept to sort of go through everything they had done in the offseason and figure out how strange it was. And then starting the next year, I started doing it for all 32 teams. Who has had the weirdest off season and the criteria is the off season is everything from your last game to whenever it is that I'm writing this thing.

So for the teams that didn't make the playoffs, there's not a date on the calendar. It's different lengths for different teams. I'm looking at trades, transactions, all that sort of thing, but hiring, firings, off the ice stories, pretty much anything. And as you said, the key here is, it's bizarre does not mean bad. There are lots of teams that have, you know, have very bad off seasons, but not in a way that is strange or surprising or even interesting.

It's just teams doing things the way the team. do and, you know, paying too much money for depth guys and too much money for leadership and, you know, all of that stuff, mismanaging the cap. And then, you know, and theoretically, it's possible for a team to be very, very strange and be all over the place, but be doing smart things, but just being one step ahead of the crowd and doing unexpected things. So, you know, I don't off the top of my head have like the historic scores. I think the all-time high was actually the Ottawa senators a few years ago when they just had that off-season. from hell where like every

story was just completely bizarre and you had like the Carlson stuff going on with Mike Hoffman and you know all sorts of other things but you know I'm just looking I'm doing a sanity check because I've already written most of it and I want to know

from you what are the five teams that based on that criteria have had the weirdest off seasons not best not worse the weirdest off seasons I'm going to start with the team that you mentioned and it's one I cover in Ottawa because just hear me out on this. You were talking a bit earlier about Chicago and you said, you know, it would be very odd, you know, for them to be so frugal for so long and this is in regards to Jersey retirement

and then all of a sudden just start doling them out without a second thought. That's almost like Ottawa this year when it comes to salary where it's like, this is the penny pinching, tight-fisted budget team that all of a sudden you're like, Oh, Alex DeBrinke, come on down. Klojuru, here you go. And I feel like, I'm trying to think of, like, what would be the best way for me to try and accurately summarize? Like, I feel like I've gone from covering the Oakland A's to,

maybe the Yankees is a bit mature. You know what I mean? But I'm, yeah, yeah. But I've gone from this budget shoe string, like, I don't know of a general manager who's altered his perception as much as Pierre Dorian. has this summer. And then when you take all of that,

can I just add one more thing for the bizarre ometer or whatever you want to call it, the bazaar rankings, Pierre McGuire. Yep. Out. Yeah. Mysteriously out. And you know what the strangest thing about that was?

I love mysterious departures. The strangest thing about that was, we all went, oh yeah, Peter McGuire. I totally forgot about that. Yep. Yeah. Yep. And here, I'll tell you the weird thing to me.

about the senators is what's happening here in ottawa right now senators fans they're happy they're optimistic there's smiles on the faces of you know like it's so strange it's been like you know this this fan base has been you know kicked for years and years and years and even the you know the one year that they they had the success in 2017 everyone was like oh you're so boring we can't wait for you to lose uh and now they're just what there's a you know they got a little bit of a stride. Everyone's just, you walk, you look out on the sidewalks and it's just people in Sends Jersey strutting around like they're in a Wilson Phillips video. They're so, they're so excited. They got such pep in their step. And that, yeah, that is, that is definitely strange as well.

So that's, that's a good call. I think they will definitely score high. You know, you know, it's a Wilson Phillips video where there was people, people know. But there are like three of them. I don't know. They were bopping along the streets. You know the one, I mean. Couldn't have been released me. I don't know. It was a sad song. I don't think it was released me.

That might be Matt Murray's theme song later this year, but it won't be, no. Okay. Another team I'd like to throw in the mix would be the New York Islanders. In fact, I might even say that they would be high. Like, look, they fired Barry. That was this offseason, wasn't it? They fired Barry tribes. Like, this guy is arguably the best coach going.

Or you talked to a lot of people within the last year. If you say, who's the coach you'd want, Barry would be at the top of the list. then they kind of didn't really do anything to the roster. They didn't do anything, yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think that's a good. And the other thing that I find very strange about, maybe not very strange, but I feel like the worm has turned on Lou Lamarillo.

Among Islander fans and just the wider, you know, we saw in our, we were talking a few episodes go about the front office confidence rankings. And Lou has dropped significantly. And I feel like Islander fans after this offseason were just not impressed with his work or lack of work. So, yeah. And again, you know, bizarre also doesn't necessarily have to mean newsworthy. The lack of news can be an issue for a team. And I think that was probably the case for the Islander.

So, yeah, I think that's a decent call. Islanders are in there. Like, okay, so now my question is on your meter, if you were to take a singular event, like the Columbus landing Johnny Goddrow was, let's all admit, the most shocking seismic moment of the offseason. Not that Goodrow left Calgary, but that he landed in Columbus, right? Yep. Bazaar.

Absolutely. Utterly bizarre, capital B, bizarre. But is that enough to worm their way into the mix or no? Yeah, I don't have a final score for them yet, but I think it is. I think the most, because you nailed it. It's the single most shocking, uh, mold. of the off season. And I think that would have to be up there.

Even though, you know, they didn't do a ton elch. I mean, they got Patrick Glyney signed and a couple of other things. But, yeah, I think that they're going to score pretty well. And, you know, not just to me, the strange thing. And we're not trying to beat up Columbus, you know, by talking about how shocking it was, but they weren't on the list. You know, we mentioned before, like, we were having dinner with Portsline like a couple of days before and it never came up. There was no inkling that Gidreau was, was an option for Columbus.

For me, the strangest part was Johnny Grudrow himself, you know, the day he signs the contract. He's like, yeah, you know, we're going to fly into town and take a look around. And it's like, wait, you haven't been there? You haven't looked and like, you know, dude, like, we love it when guys sign on day one. But when you're the biggest name, like, feel free to do a bit of a tour, like, but no, he was just, he just had heard all he needed to hear. So, yeah, very strange situation. That shocked me that he hadn't gone through. Like, I was thinking that.

There's that Simpsons episode for the listeners that like the Simpsons where, you know, Ned Flanders and his wife are looking at a home and his wife says, hold on, Nettie. The homebuyers course told us we should always go inside the house before we buy it. And it's like, that's exactly what Johnny Goodroft felt like he didn't go in the house. Yeah, no, he didn't. I guess he just. He's like,

ah, it looks pretty good from here. Sometimes you just, yeah, I guess that's Columbus. Columbus Blue Jackets

curbside appeal unmatched, apparently. Yeah. Where does Chicago come out for you? Because this was a strange off season.

They're really tearing it down, right? Like just really stripping this thing, the brinket is gone. And, you know, they just,

they made it very clear that they're tearing this down. Yeah. Seemingly to go for, they're not being subtle. They're not being subtle. Seeming need to go for Conorbadard. So, I mean, they're in the mix for me a little bit. Yeah, I've got them, they've got a decent

score. I don't think they'll be in top five. Yeah. I, yeah. What about Arizona moving into Mullet Arena? Like, that's weird. Yeah, the fact that it is called Moller Arena definitely, definitely gets them up there. I hope you could take that name into consideration in the weird rankings. I don't have Arizona ranked all that high because the arena thing we knew that was kind of. That wasn't purely an offseason story. Like, I mean, it was

confirmed and everything in the offseason, but we knew about that before the end of their season. So I can't give them a ton of credit for it. Calgary had a what would we call that? Newsworthy, eventful offseason.

You know, I think you know, I think it just If you went back to March or April and you told Calgary fans, hey, by the way, you're losing Goddrault and Kachuk, I think they'd be like, what? No way. Now, I think they did a pretty good job. Brad Trill Living did a pretty good job in mitigating those losses.

You get McKenzie Wigger, Jonathan Hubbardow, Nazim Cadry. You did also have to give up Sean Wanahan in a first to kind of make all the pieces fit. But, you know, all things considered, I don't think the flames are demonstrably worse than they were last year. At the very least, they've kind of got themselves back into the conversation of being a playoff team. But man, a lot of things seem to happen in Calgary. Yep. Yep. The flames are going to rank very highly. I don't know exactly where they'll rank, but yes, I mean, I've said over and over again that, you know, just being newsworthy isn't necessarily. But for a team to be this newsworthy, I think is quite unusual. To lose the number one

free agent is a big deal to then have the number one player on the trade market say I want out a few days later to pull off the sort of blockbuster that they did. And then they go and get Nazim Kadri at the end, which was bizarre in its own right, because I mean it was like seven weeks on the free agency market that he's been sitting there. I think that they will that they'll be pretty high up there. If anything, just because the reality of the reality of it is if you had said at the beginning of the year, beginning of the off season, some team is going to lose a huge free agent and they're going to have their next best player demand a trade.

Okay, we all know the blueprint at that point. That's when the GM throws his hands up and says, guys, hey, look what happened to me. What a terrible, terrible thing. Yeah. I guess we just got to start over. You know, we got to start the rebuild. No expectations of me for a few years now, guys. Everybody, you know, just we're going to do the best we can.

but I guess we're going to go back to the middle of the pack, maybe even worse. And the fact that Brad Dr. Living basically said, you know what, screw this. No, we're going to be good and maybe even better. It was just, you know, and I don't know if they are better. In fact, I suspect that we're all maybe getting a little too excited

about the moves that were made just because the bar was so low on our expectations. But I love that a team went for it. I love that a team kind of, you know, flipped, the middle finger to to the hockey gods and said, you know what, we're going to, you know, you're going to drop this. Okay, we're going to trade that star player for two star players. And we're going to use cap room. We're going to get guys back and, you know, all of this stuff.

A team that seemed like they were imploding ended up coming out of it looking pretty good. I, you know, I kind of love it. And I do think that's bizarre. Unfortunately, in the NHL where GMs tend to always want to be very, you know, safe and risk averse and all of that stuff. I love what they did in Calgary, even if I'm not 100% sold on at work.

And I guess the other side of that equation with Calgary would be Florida, right? Because they swung that big trade. And let's not forget the Panthers also this offseason decided to say goodbye to Andrew Brunette, who all that guy did was, hey, I'm going to take over from Joel Quenville when he was dismissed or relieved of his duties

and guided them to a president's trophy. And then you replace them with... Paul Maurice. Feels like they kind of let them dangle for a little while. Anyway, and then Paul Maurice, the guy that that's, yeah,

that's a lot of. I think Florida will be right up there. I'll throw one other team at you that I've got, because I do have them scored and they scored pretty high. The Minnesota Wild. Yes. For, you know,

not just, you know, as far as the transactions in that, not to, you know, nothing too crazy. Although the Cam Talbot's situation, remember with his agent,

say, oh, to Bill Garen? Bill Garen's got a lot of work to do. And then I can't, you know, my kids are, my kids are in the house. I can't repeat what Bill Garon said in response. Not under his breath, not an off-the-record. Like, you know, he basically told the, you know, the reporters, this is what I want to say.

But then the whole Caprizov story that, again, that had nothing to do with, you know, with the ride. It wasn't a trade or signing or anything like that. But that was, you know, if it's not Johnny Goodro, that was. was the other strangest story of the season. And it seems like all as well, it ends well. And but for a couple weeks there, I mean, we're just, you didn't know if you were following the NHL or if this was like a Tom Clancy novel. It was, it was, it was stranger for a while.

Yeah. Some espionage for sure. Since my kids are nowhere near, I can, I relate to quote. And Bill Darren, he, you know, it was George. Earmuffs, kids. Yeah, earmuff. Yeah, I love that scene. Earmuffs.

Camp Talbot's agent with all that, yeah, you know, Bill's got some thinking to and it was Bill Garan telling Mike Russo, I don't have shit to do. That's like the greatest quote. And not like a, like, are you, is that on the record? Yeah. It's, it's, I don't know shit to do. Yeah.

That's not, you know, off the record from a GM, that wouldn't be all that newsworthy. But no, that was, that was right. And it's such a great quote because I, whatever, we've all dreamed of using that quote. When somebody says, we've got something do to just be able to fire back, whether it's a boss or, you know, anybody. You're telling your spouse, like, hey, you, you know, that lawn, you got to move the lawn.

There's still some yard work to be done. I ain't got, yeah, it'd be like, that would not go well. You'd be, I just picked your, Bill Gates. I don't know if people, this is, this is, I was going to say this is too obscure, but I've already done the Wilson Phillips thing. So I've lost everyone that would do the, if you ever heard the Kevin Hartbit about getting to swear to his teacher where his mom gets, it tells us. he can go tell the teacher to, you know, to mind her damn business.

And he's so excited that he gets to swear to the teacher and he tells all his friends, it's about to go down. I picture Bill Garin telling, like, the rest of his front office as he's going off to talk to the media. Just watch this. It's about to go down. And then maybe going a little bit overboard. I still want to know at some point what does, because the only Wilson Phillips songs I can think

of are like, like release me. And what's the other thing? No, no. Those are sad. That's not a sad song. Come on, man. It isn't? No, no.

We're going to figure out. I need you. Okay. Right now, I'm going to talk. I want you to look up the lyrics for hold on. I'm pretty sure. I'm not, I don't need the lyrics.

They're not upbeat. It's hold on. I'm looking at the, I've called up the video right here. Hold on. They're, okay, they're on a mountain.

They are, you know, they're a little bit sad. There's a forest. They're on a beach for some reason in like, yeah, cocktail dresses. But it keeps skipping.

It keeps skipping. It keeps, There's a lot less walking in this video than I thought. But at some point, they are, no, no, it, it happens. Here they go. Yeah, they're walking along a beach. The sun is shining. There's people looking at them who don't seem to be actors.

I think they just, I think they just film this video like on a Tuesday morning. They are, they've got a stride. I'm telling you, man, there's three groups of people, all right? There's, there's, first of all, there's people out there who don't know who Wilson Phillips is. You're too young to be on the internet. Get off. Get off the internet. We don't, we don't, uh,

you're not you're not old enough ask mom and dad permission first before you listen to podcast there's people who agree with you because they're not up on their Wilson Phillips the way I am and then there's people screaming at their at their device that I'm right and they're screaming at you that you're wrong and we're gonna get we're gonna have we're gonna have a listener mailbag full of Wilson Philip fans yeah next year and and and next week and it's gonna be your fault frankly yeah you know I I remember years of ago, what was the defenseman, God, and it wasn't, because obviously Tom Wilson comes to mind, he's a forward, and it wasn't Colin Wilson, I don't think. Anyway, I remember making a

joke saying, imagine if Ottawa traded for, man, why am I blank? Who was a Wilson, like, defensemen in the early 2000s? There was, anyway, I said, Ottawa should trade for him. Imagine the de-paring Wilson Phillips, how much fun we could have with Chris Phillips and Wilson. And see, well. And how'd that joke go over? Just like it did right now. Okay. Very awkwardly.

Yeah. Very awkwardly and poorly. I don't even remember what Wilson was there. Oh, there's a Mike Wilson. I seem to remember. You know what? That's exactly what I think it was Mike Wilson. Would have been after Doug Wilson's time.

Yeah. Pre, post Doug Wilson pre-Tom Wilson, there was another Wilson in there. Right around the time, like the Tom Hanks movie, that was Wilson, right? it was in that window. Right in that window. That's the Wilson window. Okay. Is there Ryan Wilson?

I don't know. And there's the voice of Danielle. Yeah. Oh, boy, that's curious. I forget she's there right now. This is normally when you'd expect the producer to be like, shut up about Wilson. Shut up. And talk about Arkey.

I just have Wilson Phillips claim in my head. Yeah. Well, you probably, you know, you're welcome. There are, by the way, two. active players name Phillips in the league right now and active not you know they're not especially active but just in case uh because if they ever either one of those guys ever fights tom wilson oh boy wilson oh i'm going to be all over that i you got to be the play by play guys got they've combined for five games so i was being really generous on active but um oh boy that's

that'll be up there with the taco bell trade is uh the all time great n hl double pun moments. Oh, man. Imagine they get in the fight. It's a play-by-play guy's got to say, you just got to hold on here. Okay. Okay.

Play release me with the penalty ends. It'll be perfect. It'll be great. Wait a second. There are two songs were hold on and release me. I never really thought about it. What conflicting message? What conflicting messages are that?

Do you want me to hold on or let go? See, ladies, this is why guys don't understand you. Because you're not, you're just, Come on. Yeah. Okay. What are we doing? What have we done here?

We've turned us into a Wilson Phillips pod. We said that you can send us emails, feedback. It's a perfect segue for us to talk about some emails we got. The athletic hockey show at gmail.com. The athletic hockey show at gmail.com. Or leave us a voicemail. Probably some angry voicemails about Wilson Phillips. 845-4-45-84-59.

Grant from Virginia. This is less of a question, guys. I guess more of a commentary. Nick Suzuki being named captain of the Montreal Canadians got me thinking about the recent trend of young star players been given the sea. I've crunched some numbers here. The average age of captains for this season

is 30 and a half years, 30.5. 10 years ago it was 30.4, but in 0203, it was north of 32 years. My point is, there are four captains in league right now who are under 25, the youngest being Brady Kachukuk in 22, go back 20 years ago, there's only one who fit that category in Joel Thornton. Bonus points, if you can name the three captains from 20 years ago who are NHL GMs today. That comes in from Grant.

So I guess Sackett Geiserman, right? Yeah, Sackett Geiseman, I would assume Ron Francis would be the other one. Oh, yeah. There you go. I don't know if, I mean, a lot of, a lot of ex-player's as GMs was Bill Garon ever a captain, anything like that. But Ron Francis was the captain in, in Carolina for a few years. Yeah. Bill Garon would have handled the workload.

They'd be like, Bill, you got this meeting with the players and the coaches after you. I don't got shit to do. Yeah, I don't think, Bill. Stop asking Bill to do things. He's not doing it. Dan from Chicago writes in to us on email. Quick question, guys, maybe this is something I miss. Back of the day, I remember when players used to tuck their jerseys into their pants.

I remember Wayne Gretzky even got in some hot water for tucking the CCM logo into his pants when he was with L.A. Why did this change? Is there a safety reason behind this? I just don't seem to remember ever getting hurt because of an untucked jersey. Is this another strange NHL decision to sap the fun out of the game? Yeah, Gretzky used to tuck the right side of his jersey. And if I'm not mistaken, did CCM not move the logo to the left side so that he could still do the tuck, but the little logo was visible?

I believe so, yeah, that does sound familiar. And they did pass a rule at some point, although I don't remember if it was, did they not wait for Gertzky to retire? Yeah, or did they do it? And then they said, yeah, you can't tuck in the jersey. And it was a little bit of a no fun thing. Although my good pal in hockey writing and formerly hockey podcasting Greg Wyszynski buys into a conspiracy theory here that this was a preemptive move by the league for eventually selling ads on jerseys that and you know you could argue that the CCM finally got there's already

that this was their way of making sure that players couldn't alter their uniform or do anything like that that might hide a logo at some point that somebody had sold so yeah that's but but yes dan is correct players used to tuck it in Gilmore used to do it. There were others. And no, it's not a safety thing. I think it's, it's, you know, similar to the NFL, you know, you got to have got to have the right type of socks and pulled up to the right length, that sort of thing. Yeah, that's exactly what it was. And I don't remember exactly when they changed it, but they did at some point. And one more, you got to tweet here from the hockey boomer. Anaheim fans are excited, hopeful for the season to come largely on the back

of the season the young players had last year. My question is, has the sophomore slump kind of gone away? Or is it just a touch of recency bias due to all the elite young players that we've seen? That's the hockey boomer. You know what? It's a good point. Like, um, I'm trying to get some good. Like, think of like an Austin Matthews.

Like he came in the league. Did anybody say like, oh, got to watch over that sophomore slump? Yeah. You know, it's an interesting question because this used to be, it wasn't a hockey thing. It was a sports thing. Yeah. He used to hear this in sports quite a lot. And, and I, you know, I haven't really.

heard it all that much. And no, I mean, I think recently you haven't seen a lot of guys come in and have big rookie years and then, you know, a second year fall off. I mean, the reason, the sophomore slump

was similar in a way to like the curse of the Sports Illustrated cover. Right? Like, if you, it's the selection bias of, if you're on the cover of Sports Illustrator, you're probably at the height of whatever it is that you do. If you're someone that people even talk about a sophomore slump, it's probably because you had an unexpectedly great rookie year, and there's kind of only one way

to go. So, you know, I'm sure there are guys who've outproduced expectations in a rookie year. And then, you know, Michael Bunting might have a sophomore slump this year. That would, I don't think would shock anyone. But Connor McDavid or, you know, awesome. Even Patrick Lainey had like the, I think his one big year was his second year. And that's when guys feel like they hit the stride. So no, I wouldn't be concerned if I was a fan of any team with good young rookies that you're going to see a second year slump. That doesn't really seem to be a thing anymore.

I don't know if it ever was. We used to talk about it a lot more. And you just don't hear it these days. Let's wrap up with a little this week in hockey history. And for those people who have been patiently waiting for, hey, didn't Ian make an Adam foot reference and promise to circle back to it? Well, here we are. We've arrived to that point.

It would have been funny if you just never came back to it. I had people like, oh my God, what? I didn't even leave us a cliffhanger like that. This week in hockey history, September of 1996, September 14th, 1996, to be exact, Team USA stuns Team Canada with four late third period goals to steal a 5-2 victory and capture the inaugural World Cup of Hockey, played at the Bell Center in Montreal. And the reason why I bring up Adam Foote's name is, you know, Sean, and you and I, you and I

went to what, game two of this tournament? See, I was trying to remember, did we go to game two or were we two and three? Were we there that night? No. We weren't for game three? Okay, I thought maybe we were. Like, maybe you were there for game three. And I don't think so.

I think we went to game two. Okay. Yeah, we definitely went to game two, which we think. thought, yeah, that was, because that was going to be coronation night where Canada was going to take their rightful place. And, yeah, wasn't to be it. And, you know, if you think about the great goals in Canadian history, right, there's, there's, you're going to hear a lot about Paul Henderson and, uh, in the days to come here as we get to the 50th anniversary of 72 and, you know, Mario had the goal in 87 and Sid in 2010. Adam foot for like four minutes in real time

was like part of this group because Adam foot scored with seven minutes left in, you know, in this game to give Canada a 2-1 lead. And we thought, my goodness gracious, Adam Foote is going to go down in history as a guy who has scored one of the great goals. And then what happened? It was, I think it was Hull. It was a Monty.

It was, I think Deadmarsh had a goal or an empty-night. Anyway, long story short, the Americans came back and stunned Team Canada. And Adam Foote's moment of glory internationally was taken away in the span of a boat, like I said, three or four minutes of real time. Devastating. Yeah, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, and you know, man, I don't remember this game that well. And, and, and, and, uh, and, I, I, I, I, I, and I, I remember other parts of this. Remember the line brawl between USA and Canada? I think it was

Kichuk and Lemieux, right? In there, it was a, there was a, there was another fight going on at the same day. It was Kuchuk, Lemieux, um, was Lindros? in one of them. Were we getting another American reference coming in? Yeah, it could have been. Yeah, like it was, but yeah,

there was like a full on line brawl with two, you know, punches, throwing fights going on at the same time in an international best off best tournament.

I mean, it was completely wild, but it was, yeah, that was a fun tournament, but that game, maybe you're right, maybe I've just blocked it out,

but I don't, I don't, you know, a collapse like, that. I'm somebody. I hold on to those things, man. I remember detail. So I'm surprised I don't have this one as ready to go as some. You've tucked it away into a deep, dark corner of your mind. You don't want to. Yeah, but dude, I've been a Leaf fan my whole life. If I blocked all the bad memories, I wouldn't know anything about anything. You wouldn't know anything? Yeah, I'd be,

I'd have nothing for you. So. Yeah. All right. Well, listen, let's leave it there to, to wrap up this edition of the Thursday edition of the athletic hockey show. I want to thank everybody for joining us. Like I said, next week, training camps will be underway. We will probably, I'm thinking we're going to have less Wilson Phillips talk, but I don't want to, I don't want to make any promises. You know what?

That's up to you, the listener. If you want more than that. That's going to be, it's going to be a survey. Hold on or release me. That's it. Or can you name a third song? I don't think, is there a third song? Did they have three songs?

Now you're going to get people mad at us because there's going to be, you know, We're going to have a bunch of people telling us how, yeah, there was, you're in love. She looked it up. You're in love was a Wilson-Philip song. I don't think it's as popular, but that is one where go listen to it on YouTube after you're done watching the hold-on video and you'll be like, yeah, I remember this one. And then I think that was it. Three-hit wonder.

There we go. Three-hit wonder. We'll leave it there. Like I said, any email, feedback. We love it. The Athletic Hockey Show at g-gmail.com. We also love to hear your voice. voicemails. 845-4-4-5-8449.

Not a subscriber with us. You can join us at theathletic.com slash hockey show. Sorry, now I'm thinking about Gary Bettman phoning in as Barry Gettman or whatever. Anyway, that was from 40 minutes ago. He might be more into the Wilson-Philip stuff than anything else. Yeah, exactly. Theathletic.com slash hockey show annual subscription for a dollar a month for six months. You can also subscribe to the athletic audio plus on Apple Podcasts.

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